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"After BP Spill, Information Trickled as Oil Gushed"

"BP and the U.S. government portrayed in public a united front as a runaway well spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But they privately sought to withhold potentially critical information from each other, possibly slowing efforts to solve the crisis, according to new testimony."

"Last month’s closed-door testimony by Marcia McNutt, head of the U.S. Geological Survey, in the ongoing litigation over the disaster could complicate a Justice Department probe that has focused on whether BP and its partners obstructed justice by lying to investigators.

'It could have impeded the investigation, and both sides may share some blame in that regard,' said Blaine LeCesne, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who has followed the case.

Motivations aren’t clear from transcripts the Houston Chronicle obtained of McNutt’s two-day deposition in New Orleans, but the British oil giant’s pocketbook and the government’s ability to punish the responsible parties remain on the line more than two years later."